Supply Chain Manager Question:

My job is about optimization. We're trying to reduce waste, reduce cost for transportation, maximize storage, and help dealers do business. In Taiwan, we have a third-party consolidator who makes sure all our orders are shipping together, so we're getting one complete container of product versus four partial containers. So we're saving transportation cost and not wasting shipping space. For our dealers, we act as "just-in-time" inventory, so the shop doesn't have to worry about carrying lots of inventory or ordering random parts to fulfill their orders. Ultimately, it's about having the right amount of inventory at the right time, especially given the seasonality of biking.

As a company, we're conscious of our impact. Our building is LEED Gold-certified, and we're proud of our work to protect the environment. We also are trying to reduce our environmental footprint, so we expanded to another warehouse in Utah closer to our west coast customers. We can use ground transportation rather than air for that inventory, which saves a lot of transportation costs and emissions.